NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Sudan’s president made his sixth foreign trip since his indictment on charges of war crimes in Darfur, traveling Tuesday to Ethiopia despite the international warrant for his arrest. An Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman said President Omar al-Bashir would not face arrest.

He will discuss “political, economic and security matters” issues with Ethiopian officials during a daylong visit and will meet with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, spokesman Wahide Belay said.

“He is welcome as a guest to Ethiopia,” he said. “As you know, we have opposed the arrest warrant as a country, as a government, within (regional groups) and within the African Union. There is no reason to take any action on the president.”

Wahide said al-Bashir would leave Ethiopia on Wednesday.

Since the International Criminal Court issued the arrest warrant on March 4, al-Bashir has visited Eritrea, Egypt and Libya, attended an Arab League summit in Qatar and performed a pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest city, Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. In March, the Arab League formally rejected the charges against al-Bashir.

Many African countries have said they will not arrest al-Bashir. The African Union, which is based in Ethiopia, has said al-Bashir’s arrest would dangerously imperil the fragile peace process in Sudan and has asked the U.N. to defer the warrant for one year.

While al-Bashir appears to have safe haven in Africa and Arab countries, other nations have supported the arrest warrant.

The United States, Britain and France have strongly opposed any deferral of the warrant for his arrest. President Barack Obama in March denounced the “genocide” in Darfur. But the U.S. has not recognized the ICC’s jurisdiction, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has said that al-Bashir should be arrested once he leaves Sudanese airspace and that prosecutors are monitoring al-Bashir’s movements. However, the Hague-based court has no police force to execute the warrant.

Al-Bashir’s Arab-led government has been battling ethnic African rebels in the region since 2003, and some 300,000 people have died in fighting and 2.7 million displaced in the conflict, according to U.N. figures. Sudan says the numbers are exaggerated.

Sudan’s government expelled more than a dozen local and international aid agencies after the arrest warrant.

(This version CORRECTS throughout that Bashir was not indicted for genocide)

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